Rees took Tina to a local emergency room and immediately regretted it. It was small and crowded. There were blood and vomit stains on the floor. She worried about Tina getting a staph infection.

Media: Houston Chronicle
The Memorial High coach spoke to her students about her cancer.

They left and Tina went back to the hotel, ill, tired and too weak to fly to Houston.

Rees frantically researched online, asked locals and called several hospitals, finding St. Rose, in nearby Henderson, on Wednesday. It was a much better alternative.

St. Rose also was crowded, but clean, and Tina was getting ample attention. The hospital staff, out of rooms, set up a bed and a curtain in a hallway.

The two spent the next 48 hours there.

Tina and Rees missed their original flight back home to Houston. Rees knew she needed to get Tina to her doctors at M.D. Anderson. The only flights remaining on that Friday were first class. Not ideal on a teacher's salary, but it had to be done.

"I think we both thought she would die there," Rees said. "But neither of us said it. You just don't say that."

The following Tuesday, four days after returning from Las Vegas, the tests from M.D. Anderson came back.

For the second time in a little more than four years, Rees sat close to her partner and received unthinkable news.

The Stage 4 lung cancer had reached Tina's brain.

After more than four years of fighting, cancer had dealt its penultimate blow.

Since the beginning of this difficult journey with cancer, Tina has been open and honest with students, players and friends. A teacher and a coach for more than 20 years, she knew that was best.

It started March 13, 2009 - a Friday the 13th those close to her will never forget.

In the Memorial girls coaches' office, she sat on an old black futon against a wall that featured snapshots of toothy-grinned teenage girls. It was the Friday before spring break.

Suddenly and strangely, Tina started reciting the U.S. Constitution. Then, it just became gibberish. The volleyball coach, Beth Gammill, called an ambulance.

Tina had suffered a mini-stroke.

The doctor who saw her at Memorial Hermann noticed something strange in one test and ordered more. It was unrelated to the attack, but doctors found advanced lung cancer.

The prognosis was six to 11 months to live.

Tina had several treatment options. She chose the competitive route, fitting her personality. She took an aggressive approach in her fight and refused to give up her teaching and coaching.

After missing one of her team's softball games, she came to the next in the fourth inning.

She sat in her Toyota Tundra, watching from the parking lot. After the victory, she asked the team to huddle around.

She delivered the news - every detail of it.

"I have cancer."

Gasps, then sobs.

"I might be lucky enough to have a year left."

"I'm still your coach."

"I'm going to fight."

That was the only option.

'Don't cry'

On Aug. 5, Tina expected to have 30 or so of her players and students huddled around on the Memorial gym's glossy hardwood floor. Instead, the old wooden bleachers were full of students, parents, teachers, coaches from other schools and concerned members of the community.

This time, Tina had to tell them that she wasn't still their coach, she wasn't coming back to school. Just more than two weeks after being stricken in Las Vegas, she had a message to deliver and was ready.

Talk fluttered among the crowd. It was white noise to fill the tense gym. A Facebook message sent to just a few had reached many, telling them to be there.

Along the baseline and against the walls stood faculty and administration members with hands in pockets, heads down. They knew.

When Tina took the microphone at the podium that had been pulled onto the basketball court, she looked the way she always has - one of her dozens of bright red Memorial Mustangs shirts, black gym shorts, worn-out sneakers with a full head of wavy, light brown hair and no makeup.

She thanked several individuals. She introduced her family. Her two sisters, Trisha and Tammy, her mother, Henny. A brother-in-law, a nephew, two nieces.

Then she gave the news.

The room was silent except for the occasional muffled sob or sniffle.

Tina cried, too.

"I am not crying because I am sad or scared," she said. "I am pain-free, I am at peace. These are tears of joy, because I am so touched by all of you."

Tina introduced her doctor and her therapist and told the crowd to feel free to ask questions.

She wanted the truth out there. Over the next hour, people flooded her with hugs and attention. She offered words of advice to many.

"Keep your head up and keep working."

"You work hard, and I know you can get into any college you want."

"Make good decisions."

Tina was the one comforting those in pain. She was more worried about them than herself. This was her chance to say goodbye.

There was not a dry eye in the room.

"It's going to be OK," she told person after person. "Don't cry. You will be fine."

Saddened people filed out of the gym, wondering how to cope with the news and all asking virtually the same thing.

"How did she just do that?"

That was the only option.

'Thank you'

The last two weeks forced Tina into a routine different than a normal August. Lesson plans and volleyball game plans have been replaced by sleeping - lots of sleeping - eating and medicating.

There was no mass in her brain doctors could remove. Her scans looked like sand was sprinkled across her brain. The cancer was everywhere, leaving 10 consecutive days of radiation - to relieve pressure in her brain - as the best course of action.

Her days were routine and uneventful.

She woke up early to take a round of meds - some for chemotherapy, some for pain, a steroid to keep her strong. Then breakfast. A giant bagel smeared with cream cheese, washed down with chocolate milk and Jell-O - cherry because it had to be Memorial red. The medication causes hunger.

A morning nap followed, then on to M.D. Anderson for her radiation therapy.

She lay with a fitted mask over her face. She saw a blue light and tasted Clorox during the treatment. There was no blue light, the technicians said, but she saw it anyway.

After radiation, there was a late lunch, her favorite - a turkey sandwich.

Day by day, the activity dwindled.

"She sleeps all the time," Rees said. "I asked her recently what she thinks about and she said she thinks about sleeping. She is exhausted."

Rees knows her time with Tina is coming to an end. The cancer is taking over, and Tina is less and less lucid each day.

But there are moments of clarity.

Tina will squeeze Rees' hand.

"Thank you. I know you are taking care of me."

And Rees continues to do it every day.

That is the only option.

'I am ready'

It's days away from the start of school, and Memorial High School is buzzing.

There are orientations and student organization meetings. The band and the football team are getting ready for their first Friday night. The volleyball team is practicing for tournaments.

"She's my family," Gammill said. "I am shattered by this news. Thank God we had her in here so long. Do you know how many lives she's touched, how many she has inspired? She is amazing."

There is a lot of sadness at Memorial.

When school starts Monday morning, it won't be the same.

Tina won't be there to coach the volleyball team. She won't be there to teach history. She won't be there to give unsolicited advice to the thousands of students.

An inspiration

Her absence will be nearly unmanageable for many.

But all Tina wants from her friends, her students, her family is for them to go on without her and lead extraordinary lives.

"I know I'll never be more inspired by anyone," her former player Jennie Kieval said. "Look at everything she has done. With this illness. She always put us first. She always did everything for us. I can't imagine who I would be now if I hadn't had her in my life."

Everyone who knows Tina chokes back tears when her deteriorating condition is mentioned.

But conversation about Tina always turns to laughter.

Her humor, her spirit and her strength are what people think of most.

Tina is in a hospital room at M.D. Anderson now.

Rees took her there early Wednesday morning.

Since her cancer took a turn for the worse in Las Vegas, there have been good days, but lately, there have been more bad ones.

"I am a pretty simple and pretty optimistic person," Rees said. "This is hard but I try to think about how lucky we have been to have Tina for these last four years. And I think of everything she has done in that time. So many lives touched. I try to think of that."

These four years at war with cancer have been the best of Tina's life. She insists. Her perspective is different. Every moment is more precious.

On that Monday in front of a gym full of admirers, supporters and loved ones, she made sure everyone knew that as she told them to live their lives and make her proud.